Re: [IceHorses] Re: ALA in Icelandic grass
On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:29:42 -0500, you wrote: and some cant be avoided, like here, a big west nile location. Absolutely. Same for tetanus, it's essential. But flu vaccinations every SIX MONTHS as required for all FEIF competitions??? The mind boggles! Mic Mic (Michelle) Rushen --- Solva Icelandic Horses and DeMeulenkamp Sweet Itch Rugs: www.solva-icelandics.co.uk ---
Re: [IceHorses] Re: ALA in Icelandic grass
here I do flu and rhino twice a year for horses that leave the premises but here seems rhino outbreaks are pretty frequent. and I hate the s@@t. as much as I hate strangles. may not always be deadly but judt do nasty and spreads so easy! janice
Re: [IceHorses] Re: ALA in Icelandic grass
On Jun 30, 2008, at 3:33 AM, Mic Rushen wrote: On Sun, 29 Jun 2008 16:29:42 -0500, you wrote: and some cant be avoided, like here, a big west nile location. Absolutely. Same for tetanus, it's essential. But flu vaccinations every SIX MONTHS as required for all FEIF competitions??? The mind boggles! Mic I've never heard of flu vaccine being required for a competition, but on the other hand, any of my horses that go to competitions or group camping have always gotten a flu booster every six months. It is my understanding is that that vaccine doesn't hold its effectivity for the whole year. (Just had the vet out to give 6-way and rabies to the whole gang: no discernable reactions from anyone.) Lynn Kinsky, Santa Ynez, CA ranch: http://www.silcom.com/~lkinsky/ http://members.dslextreme.com/users/napha/HighPoint/
Re: [IceHorses] Re: ALA in Icelandic grass
icelandics and breeds from a small gene pool seem to be more susceptible to immune sys responses to vaccines. some think it can cause immune sys over reaction and launch sweet itch among other things. I have a pure old foundation double line bred mccurdy horse and I almost killed him with his first 5 in one shot and was told his dam reacts badly to shots. it was as if it GAVE him encephalitis and he nearly died after his 3rd day of not eating or drinking. if I give his shots singly over one shot per every 2 wks he is ok. janice
Re: [IceHorses] Re: ALA in Icelandic grass
(Just had the vet out to give 6-way and rabies to the whole gang: no discernable reactions from anyone.) I've given 3-, 4- and 5-ways to a lot of horses for a lot of years, and we've never had a reaction. In fact, the only vaccine reaction we've ever seen was with Thunder - after one of his early WNV vaccines, he had some vague neurological symptoms for about 12-24 hours, starting a few hours after the vaccine. That one happened to be a single vaccine, a fall booster that was the only vaccine he got that day. He was fine afterwards. Since WNV is a real threat here, he's had it every time it's come due since, and has never had another reaction. Of course, I can't swear it was due to the WNV, but the timing did seem right, and the symptoms seemed appropriate. I've never heard anything to make me think that there's any real link between SE and the timing or combining of vaccines - not in horses with normal, healthy immune systems. MAYBE there is, but, if so, it's not strong enough for me to change my schedule. If people want to stagger their vaccines to be extra-safe, I think that's fine, but sometimes I think the attitude behind staggering them gets preachy on these lists, to the point of putting a guilt trip on those who don't feel like they can easily do it, for whatever reason. Let's face it, with gas costs going up, the vet's farm call charges will NOT be going down probably ever, and some of us don't live close to a vet clinic. Because I have so many horses, my vet is out all along during the year, and I COULD stagger my shot schedule...but I just don't see the need. I could choose to have 2-3 horses in my pastures and pamper them with every luxury known to man, but instead, I keep my pastures chock full of horses, some needy and unwanted, and try to give merely good health care to all of them. Karen Thomas, NC
Re: [IceHorses] Re: ALA in Icelandic grass
icelandics and breeds from a small gene pool seem to be more susceptible to immune sys responses to vaccines. some think it can cause immune sys over reaction and launch sweet itch among other things. I have a pure old foundation double line bred mccurdy horse and I almost killed him with his first 5 in one shot and was told his dam reacts badly to shots. it was as if it GAVE him encephalitis and he nearly died after his 3rd day of not eating or drinking. if I give his shots singly over one shot per every 2 wks he is ok. In the greater scheme of things, I don't believe Icelandic's have a small gene pool, and they are certainly not even close to being a rare breed. There are something like 150,000 Icelandic's in the world, give or take a few ten thousand - right? There are 120 Corolla Banker horses left. Not 120,000 - 120... period. Go read the numbers on some of the equine conservancy websites - the numbers for the truly rare breeds are staggering. I think we should be very careful about in-breeding in this breed, to preserve the diversity we have though. How many McCurdy's are there? A thousand or less? Karen Thomas, NC
Re: [IceHorses] Re: ALA in Icelandic grass
. How many McCurdy's are there? A thousand or less? Karen Thomas, NC 600 and traveller was an accidental breeding so his grandparents are also his grandparents on one side, something like that. so he is just a little pinhead mongrel :) Janice -- even good horses have bad days sometimes.
Re: [IceHorses] Re: ALA in Icelandic grass
600 and traveller was an accidental breeding so his grandparents are also his grandparents on one side, something like that. so he is just a little pinhead mongrel :) Or...if he were an Icelandic, you could go strutting about that he's one of the elite Konkave/InKongruent bloodlines - or whatever those K bloodlines are where they practice so much inbreeding. Of course, they call it line-breeding, but the standard joke is that it's line-breeding if you cheated the odds and it sorta worked, and in-breeding if you didin't. :) A lot of TWH are pretty inbred. I was always darned proud that I saw one duplicated ancestor on each of Holly's and Mac's five-generation pedigrees, meaning their inbreeding was minimal at least. I think some poor horses are their own uncles! Karen Thomas, NC
Re: [IceHorses] Re: ALA in Icelandic grass
. I suspect another factor may be the type/number/frequency of vaccinations given as well. Mic and some cant be avoided, like here, a big west nile location. janice -- even good horses have bad days sometimes.
Re: [IceHorses] Re: ALA in Icelandic grass
and theres like what, five icelandics in florida and I have two of em. That's a good point - with such teeny-tiny numbers, it's almost impossible to draw meaningful conclusions. In fact, with only 2000-3000 Icelandic horses (domestics and imports) in the entire country, living in many different climate/geography regions, I think it will be hard to draw many meaningful conclusions for a long time, if ever. I believe that I understand that there are three (at least?) major factors in if/how SE presents: 1) the immunities developed soon after birth 2) the natural tendency the horse to have an allergy to cullicoides (I believe that is what is shown in the number given by the allergy tests) 3) the geography/climate where the adult horse lives. It would appear that Tivar didn't not develop the necessary immunities at birth to be able to fight the gnat population in Florida - item 1. Bodega Bay California is probably about as different a climate from the panhandle of Florida as you can get in the USA. I believe that it shows in the number from the Cornell allergy test - item 2. The only thing we can look at with Tivar so far is item #3 - he has changed geography/climate...and not by a major degree either. Honestly, I'm very surprised that he's looking so much better here in such a short time. (As always, I'm still praying this isn't temporary...) But I have told Karen Teev is doing so great at her place i honestly believe he just got addicted to scratching and rubbing and since she has a big field where he cant rub on anything he is getting his habit extinguished thank God. I agree that's a factor in the TREATMENT of SE once it appears. What surprises me is that he shows so few signs of SE...SO FAR... Meaning that I don't think he's really showing SE here, not to any serious degree. He DOES love to rub - he's a little Obsessive-Compulsive about several things in his life, and that's just one of them. BUT...he has a few opportunities to rub here, and he just chooses not to most of the time. He will, but not obsessively, making me believe that he's not itching very much at all. To me, the big questions about Tivar's individual case are: 1) Is the improvement going to last? This is the HUGE question. If it doesn't last, then the following questions are moot. 2) If so, I ask this and the following: Why better in NC than in the Panhandle of FL? It's warmer there than here, but not by a long shot - I've been monitoring our temps since Tivar first showed his symptoms, and I've been surprised by how close our weather is. 3) Is the soil a factor? We have clay soil here, and Janice has sand. I know that there are totally different types of gnats that live in the sandy soil areas of the NC/SC coastal plainsIn fact, one of the nicknames for Cullicoides is sand flies. And it seems to me that the places on earth that have the highest incidence of SE are coastal areas. SE is also called Queensland Itch, and I believe that Queensland is a flat coastal area - I wonder what the soil is? I don't believe that Anneliese's soil is sandy, and I know she has had a lot of SE in imports, so that makes me think it's certainly not the only factor...but is it ONE factor? In other words, will the particular variety of cullicoides that live/breed in sandy soils make for a worse case? I don't know, I'm just asking. 4) I'm keeping Tivar in an open pasture on a little hill - not a mountain by any means, just a rolling hill that happens to be the highest point in the immediate area. We're in the Piedmont section of NC - more hills than in the flat coastal plain, but not in the mountains at all. This particular pasture is a little breezier than some areas so I wonder if that's a factor. I tend to think not, because when I ride him in the woods, which are damper and have less breeze, he doesn't seem affected there either... My first guess is that we don't have so many of the allergy-causing cullicoides in this part of the state...? So, I don't think we can draw too many conclusions from Tivar's case - maybe no conclusions at all. But, this does make me ask more questions. Karen Thomas, NC
Re: [IceHorses] Re: ALA in Icelandic grass
On Sun, 22 Jun 2008 10:24:46 -0400, you wrote: 1) the immunities developed soon after birth 2) the natural tendency the horse to have an allergy to cullicoides (I believe that is what is shown in the number given by the allergy tests) 3) the geography/climate where the adult horse lives. I suspect another factor may be the type/number/frequency of vaccinations given as well. Mic Mic (Michelle) Rushen --- Solva Icelandic Horses and DeMeulenkamp Sweet Itch Rugs: www.solva-icelandics.co.uk ---
Re: [IceHorses] Re: ALA in Icelandic grass
Thanks, Laree! Was Tivar domestic born? If so, I think he's the first domestic I know that has a cullicoides allergy. Tivar was born in northern California, near the coast, and that's where he lived until two years ago. He developed SE after he went to Florida. Even though SE isn't particularly common in the USA in non-Icelandic's, it's more common in parts of FL (among all breeds) than in most parts of the USA. He's been back in NC for about three weeks, and his symptoms have settled out immensely - in fact, he doesn't seem to be particularly itchy, no more than any other horse here. I've heard rumors of one or two other domestic Icelandic's with SE, but nothing approaching the rate that it occurs in imported Icelandic's. I've always heard that domestic-born Icelandic's get SE at about the same rate as other domestic-born breeds, and I still suspect that's true. Karen Thomas, NC
Re: [IceHorses] Re: ALA in Icelandic grass
and theres like what, five icelandics in florida and I have two of em. My vet says many dogs have flea allergies and hardly any symptoms. He said ironically, you take a pampered constantly groomed and bathed show dog with flea allergy and its never had maybe two fleas on it in its life. But put it in a cage with an old redneck yard dog thats been coated and ate up with fleas its whole life, and both with the same degree of allergy, the one never exposed to fleas is gonna be bald in a week whereas the other one seems to be less affected. My Nasi tested almost as high as Teev in the culicoide allergy test. he was 50 something and Teev was 80 something. and nasi has no symptoms at all. So is it that he has developed immunity? Or is it that he was born in texas at the same latitude as here, about the same humidity level, same temps, very similar climate, then came here at age 4 months. Bodega Bay is a place where there is no SE. Teev was there all his life then came east and developed antigens. My vet said not only is florida the worst for gnats, where I live he personally believes is the worst of the worst there is. So if nasi doesnt have it here, and Trausti, then they probably wont have it anywhere. But I have told Karen Teev is doing so great at her place i honestly believe he just got addicted to scratching and rubbing and since she has a big field where he cant rub on anything he is getting his habit extinguished thank God. The SE is something he has, it showed in his blood work, but the damage from SE that caused him suffering was from the rubbing. Last year he even tore his eyelid off catching it while rubbing on something. So the rubbing was the worst of it. Now someone has told me Happy Jack Mange lotion, very expensive, is awesome for it. I checked and it has a heavy dose of sulphur in it. Seems many skin lotions have sulphur. also one thing that seemed to make a surprising difference in Teev was garlic. otherwise nothing worked, nothing at all. Janice -- even good horses have bad days sometimes.
